


The Manhunt

by AirTrafficControl



Series: Moon on the Tides [1]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: F/M, GCSE Poetry, I'm Sorry, Poetry, Sad, Short One Shot, revision
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-29
Updated: 2014-04-29
Packaged: 2018-01-21 07:32:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 666
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1542668
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AirTrafficControl/pseuds/AirTrafficControl
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Tony is still lost, Pepper is trying to find him.<br/>A Pepper/Tony one-shot based on a poem</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Manhunt

**Author's Note:**

> This is based on The Manhunt by Simon Armitage, to which I have no claims. This is just to help me revise for my English lit. exam
> 
> This is set after Iron man 1 but before anything else.

She knew he had been hurt. There were scars spanning his chest and his neck that served as testament to that. He kept his distance and pushed her away whenever she tried to get close enough to help him, to fix him. He would hide things from her, insisting that he was perfectly fine despite the aching pain inside his soul.

She couldn’t reach him, there was too much in the way for her to break through the walls he had put up to keep himself from collapsing. She was patient with her affection, playing along with his fantasy that he was indestructible. It was painful for her to watch him suffer, knowing all the time that she could stop it if only he would let her. She prayed that he would realize before it was too late.

As time passed the wounds began to heal, he no longer looked so pale and his eyes weren’t quite so red all the time. He allowed her to clean him up after battles and to see him when he was vulnerable, without the armour to hide behind.

Once his body was fixed she could work on his mind, his heart. He refused to talk about what had happened and she refused to ask. She knew it would do no good to pressure him, he would just return to his hiding place. She had to be delicate as though walking through a minefield, one made up of nightmares and dark memories.

Many nights were spent trying to keep him from tear the alien metal from his chest in his sleep but she began to understand. The more she observed the new man, for the old one had not died in the cave, the more she saw the damage done to his spirit.

He was pulled so taught; the slightest thing would cause him to shut out the world. His fists would be so tight that his nails cut into his hands and he would hold himself so tight that he would shake. She could do nothing but stand guard as he remained paralysed with fear.

It didn’t matter that he was safe, that she was with him and she wouldn’t let anything bad happen. The luxurious Egyptian sheets felt no different in his mind from the rough scraps of cloth from his capture. The hissing of the coffee maker brought him back to the brilliantly hot poker Yinsen had been threatened with.

She put together a picture of his experiences, a collage of his triggers and the words he screamed in his sleep. She knew it was far removed from the truth but it was the closest she dared to go. Just the shadow left on him was enough to make her heart beat faster and her hands to get cold. The thought of him suffering in such horror made her sick to her stomach.

Some night she would wait until he had ceased his thrashing and screaming before slipping away to the bathroom. Resting against the bathtub she would cry silently, hating herself for not working harder to find him. Cursing the men that had broken him and hoping feverishly that she could fix him. After a while she would clean herself up, force a half believable smile onto her face and return to the bed, he was none the wiser.

Even after all that she knew she had only found the cause of the problem, that the solution was a long way off. There were no bandages or pills that would heal his pain and soothe his tired mind. The future was not going to be easy.

She didn’t care. He was alive, that was something she had been uncertain about for so long. He was home, he was safe. It could have been so many millions of times worse, hundreds of alternate scenarios with him returning even more broken or not at all.

He was broken, there was no doubt. She was determined to fix him.

 

 


End file.
